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UNITED STATES OF AMEKIOA. 



A 



THE DANGEROUS 



Itioa if ik% Ciimt 



THE CAUSES 



WHICH HAVE LED TO IT, 



AND THE 



DUTY OF THE PEOPLE. 




BY A MARYLANDER. 



/ 



BALTIMORE : ^ 

THE SUN BOOK AND JOB FEINTING ESTABLISHMENT. 

1867. 



In the preparation of the annexed pamphlet the writer was 
governed exclusively by patriotic motives. He believes his 
country to be in peril, and his object is to exhibit what 
he thinks are its causes. This he has done with no res-ard 
to any mere party success, but to serve the whole country. 
By awakening the people to the dangers impending over 
our free institutions, he hopes to satisfy them that it is 
their duty at once to adopt such a course as is necessary 
to prevent such institutions from being destroyed or impaired. 

Baltimore, October, 1867. 



In the second edition of this pamphlet the undersigned 
deems it proper to state that he i» the writer. It was not 
his original purpose to have this known. Secrecy, however, 
upon such a subject, it is almost impossible to preserve ; and 
it having, to a great extent, proved to be the case in the 
present instance, it is useless further to attempt concealment. 

REVERDY JOHNSON. 

Baltimore, November Ath, 186*7. 



The Condition of the Country. 



I. — No reflecting citizen can be insensible to the dangerous 
condition of the country. It affects injuriously every interest, 
private and public. It palsies industry in all its branches, and 
shakes the financial credit of the Government; and whilst it 
lessens the means of meeting its demands, it renders more 
oppressive the burthen of taxation. It paralyzes commerce, 
without whose healthful condition the nation cannot prosper. 
Our fathers thought, and experience has clearly proved it to be 
true, that without a real union of all the States, and they and 
their people possessing equal rights, the nation could not prosper. 
With that view they adopted the Constitution of the General 
Government. They clothed it with all the powers necessary to 
its preservation, and designed it to be perpetual. In the 
language of its preamble their object was to "secure the 
blessings of liberty to themselves and their posterity." One 
of the cardinal principles of the Government thus formed is 
the equality of the States. Its very existence depends upon 
the continuance of that equality. They are made equal in the 
Senate as to representation without regard to population, 
and in the House of Representatives, according to population. 
They and their people are alike secured in the benefits of the 
judicial department, and in every State and personal guarantee. 
To guard against the possibility of any interference with this 
principle of equality through the assumption of powers not 
granted, which might be wielded to its modification, or 



destruction, they subsequently adopted an amendment of the 
Constitution, which declares that " the powers not delegated 
to the United States nor prohibited to the States are reserved 
to the States respectively, or to the people." That equality 
is now at an end. Ten of the States and their people are not 
only not admitted to equal rights with the rest, but, as far 
as the legislative department is concerned, are denied them, 
and subjected to mere military rule. The consequence is that 
the whole potential wealth of those States is, and will be, as 
long as the present state of things continues, lost to the nation. 
Its great staples of sugar, rice and cotton, which, in the past, 
so materially contributed to the general welfare, are not, and 
cannot be produced. They nerved the arm of industry in all 
the other States as much as, if not more than, in the South, 
They enriched commerce — supplied the needs of the manufac- 
turing industry of the East, furnished the best market for its 
products, gave employment and remunerative wages to its 
employees, and increased the revenue of the country by 
increasing its imports. As long as this political disorganiza- 
tion remains, the more destructive will it be to the interests of 
all. What has brought the country into this predicament ? 
The answer is obvious. It is the course which the legislative 
department has pursued. Without meaning to impute unpa- 
triotic motives to it, or indulging in vituperation, generally 
unjust and always undignified, but assuming that it has acted 
from an honest error, it cannot, the author believes, be doubted 
that that course has been the cause of the present trouble. 
The war terminated more than two years and a half since, with 
complete military success. It grew out of the insurrectionary 
attempts of the people of the South. To suppress such attempts 
Congress,, by the Constitution, is vested with the power to sup- 
press insurrections by military force. For this purpose they 
can call out the militia ana use the army and navy ; and long 
before the recent insurrection, laws were passed under this 
authority. The design of this power was to maintain the 
integrity of the Union, and not under any circumstances to 
impair it. It was preservation and not destruction which was 



aimed at. To construe a power to preserve into a power to 
destroy is a glaring absurdity, Apd yet what has been, and 
is being done by Congress, exhibits this absurdity. They did 
call out the militia and used the army and the navy for the 
suppression of the insurrection ; that suppression has been 
attained ; no armed or other resistance to the Constitution and 
laws of the United States exist anywhere ; and yet, the Union, 
which the insurrection for a time suspended, continues sus- 
pended. Was such a result as this contemplated by the authors 
of the Constitution ? Was it contemplated in the early days of 
the insurrection ? That it was not contemplated by the former 
is clear from what has been already stated ; that it was not 
contemplated in the latter is equally clear. For in July, '61, 
Congress passed, by an almost unanimous vote, a resolution 
disavowing any purpose of conquest or subjugation, and on the 
contrary declaring that the sole object was "to defend and 
maintain the supremacy of the Constitution, and to preserve 
the Union with all the dignity, eqimlity and rights of the 
several States unimpaired." Has the Union been preserved? 
Have the States which were in insurrection been preserved? 
Are they, in the language of that resolution, now in the posses- 
sion, unimpaired, of their "dignity, equality and rights?" 
We know that they are not. If the policy of restoring them 
to their enjoyment inaugurated by Mr. Lincoln with the almost 
unanimous approval of his party, and which Mr. Johnson has 
endeavored to carry out, had not been interfered with by 
Congress, the States would long since have been in their full 
enjoyment. This, it is believed, no candid, sensible man will 
question. 

II. — The ground upon which Congress claims the power, 
which it has exerted of holding the Southern States as 
conquered and subjugated, and legislating in regard to them 
as such, is that the insurrection, before it was suppressed, 
assumed suck proportions as made it a war, and brought it 
within the war power, vested in that body by the Constitution. 
That this is an error is obvious. The power to declare war, 
and the power to provide for the suppression of insurrections, 



8 

are, in their very nature, distinct powers. The one looks 
exclusively to hostilities with foreign nations, the other to dis- 
turbances at home, and they are so treated in the Constitution. 
Congress is vested with the authority to declare war, "raise 
and support armies and provide and maintain a navy." If 
these powers were intended for cases of insurrection, the con- 
ferring upon Congress any other authority for that end would 
have been mere surplusage. And yet, in the same section of 
the Constitution vesting these — the power is expressly given 
to call out the militia to suppress insurrections. At the begin- 
ning of the recent insurrection it was universally conceded that 
when it should be suppressed the Union would be, as it was 
before — composed of States of equal dignity and entitled to 
equal rights. The insurrection, however, became so formida- 
ble that, upon grounds of humanity, as well as to give to 
the Government the means to assist in its suppression, bellige- 
rent rights were conceded to the insurrectionists. Humanity 
demanded that this should be done, in order to save the 
butchering of prisoners. If our Government had executed 
those captured by its forces, the Confederate authorities would 
have retaliated. Such a result would have answered no good 
purpose towards suppressing the rebellion, and would not 
only have lacerated the feelings of our own people, but shocked 
the public sentiment of the world. Congress, therefore, and 
the President, wisely and with the best motives, recognized 
belligerent rights in the insurrectionary government. And such 
concession at the same time gave to Congress the authority to 
exclude neutral nations from all intercourse with the South. 
As far as such nations were concerned. Congress properly 
claimed the riglits of war, and upon that claim declared the 
blockade of the Southern ports, and provided for the capture 
of vessels and their cargoes attempting to violate it. Such 
captures were made and adjudged to be lawful by our prize 
courts. This greatly aided the Government in bringing the 
insurrection to a close. In the first of these, called the prize 
cases, decided by the Supreme Court of the United States, the 
opinion contains one or two passages which have been relied 



upon as justifying Congress in considering the States in 
question as conquered provinces. This ground has been 
maintained with confidence in both Houses. The rest of the 
opinion, the author thinks, shews very plainly that the court did 
not design to announce any such doctrine. No case has since 
been before that tribunal calling for any correction of the 
misapprehension. In one, however, before Mr. Justice Nelson, 
(a member of that Court,) occurring since the termination of 
the rebellion, involving the personal rights of a citizen of 
South Carolina, he ruled that " the constitutional laws of the 
Union were thereby enjoyed and obeyed, and were as author- 
itative, and binding over the people of the State as in any other 
portion of the country." This view is plainly inconsistent 
with the pretense that the South is now a conquered territory. 
The Judge places South Carolina upon the same footing, as 
far as her rights and the rights of her people are concerned, as 
New York or any other of what were the loyal States. Since 
that ruling one has been made by Chief Justice Chase, in June, 
1867, in which that Judge refers to the opinion in the prize 
cases, and evidently treats the pretense that the Court intended 
to decide that the Southern States were not now equal States in 
the Union, to be unwarrantable. The Qase was this : A citizen 
of North Carolina was indebted on a promissory note to a citizen 
of one of the States loyal during the insurrection. Pending the 
insurrection, by force of a law passed by the Government de facto 
of North Carolina confiscating such debts, the debtor was com- 
pelled to pay it to the agent of that State, and he relied upon 
that payment as his defense. In his opinion the Chief Justice 
says, ''To maintain these propositions, the counsel for the defen- 
dant rely upon the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United 
States to the effect that the late rebellion was a civil war, in the 
prosecution of whic'i belligerent rights were exercised by the 
National (Government and accorded to the armed forces of the 
Rebel Confederacy, and upon the decision of the State Courts 
during and after the close of the American war for independence, 
whicti affirmed the validity of confiscations, and sequestrations 
decreed against the property of non-resident British subjects 



10 

and the inliabitants of colonies or states hostile to the United 
Colonies or United States." " But these decisions do not, in 
our judgment, sustain the propositions in support of which they 
are cited." 

" There is no doubt that the State of North Carolina, by the 
acts of the Convention of May, 1861, by the previous acts of the 
Governor of the State, by subsequent acts of all the departments 
of the State Government, and by the acts of the people at the 
election held after May, 1861, set aside her State Government and 
Constitution, and connected under the National Constitution, 
with the Government of the United States, and established a 
Constitution, and Government, connected with another pre- 
tended Government set up in hostility to the United States, and 
entered upon a course of active warfare against the National 
Government ; nor is there any doubt that, by these acts, the 
practical relations of North Carolina to the Union were sus- 
pended, and very serious liabilities incurred by those who were 
engaged in them." 

But these acts did not effect, even for a moment, the 

SEPARATION OF NoRTH CAROLINA FROM THE UnION, ANY MORE THAN 
THE ACTS OF AN INDIVIDUAL AVIIO COMMITS GRAVE OFFENCES AGAINST 

THE State by resisting its officers and defying its authority, 

CAN separate HIM FROM THE StaTE. ' ' 

In referring to the legal effect of conceding belligerent rights 
during the war to the Confederate Government, and to the 
decision of the Supreme Court, the Chief Justice further said : 
"In the prize cases the Supreme Court simply asserted the 
right of the United States to treat the insurgents as belligerents, 
and to claim from foreign nations the performance of neutral 
duties under the penalties known to international law. The 
decision recognized, also, the fact of the exercise and concession 
of belligerent rights, and affirmed, as a necessary consequence, 
the proposition that during the war all the inhabitants of the 
country controlled by the rebellion, and all tlie inhabitants of 
the country loyal to the Union were enemies reciprocally each 
of the other. But there is nothing in that opinion which 

GIVES countenance TO THE DOCTRINE WHICH COUNSEL ENDEAVOR TO 



11 



DEDUCE FROM IT — THA.T THE INSURGENT STATES, BY THE ACT OF THE 
REBELLION, AND BY LEVYING WAR AGAINST THE NATION, BECAME 

FOREIGN States, and their inhabitants alien enemies. ' ' In this 
view of the opinion of the Supreme Court the Chief Justice no 
doubt has the concurrence of all his associates on that bench. 
Since he became its Presiding Judge the subject has been 
several times discussed by counsel ; and although the Court 
has not deemed it proper to decide it in any subsequent case, 
the point must necessarily have been considered by them in 
consultation, and their views in that way have become known 
to the Chief Justice. Indeed his language in the Carolina case 
shows that he must speak from positive knowledge as to what 
the Judges really meant. "There is nothing," he says, "in. 
that opinion which gives countenance to the doctrine which 
counsel endeavor to deduce from it — that the insurgent States, 
by the act of the rebellion, and by levying war against the 
nation, became foreign States, and their inhabitants alien 
eremies." Now, if they were States as he holds them to have 
been during the war, and not foreign States, they must have 
been States of tlie Union, and as nothing has occurred since the 
termination of the war to change their character, they must be 
such States now. The ordinances and other acts of North 
Carolina, in the words of the Chief Justice, merely "suspended" 
"the practical relations" of that State to the Union. Those 
ordinances and acts being now themselves annulled by the 
result of the war and the acts of her citizens, suspension caused 
by them necessarily terminates, and the prior relations of the 
State are restored, and she and her citizens entitled to all the 
rights, and bound by all the duties, as at first. But the doctrine 
itself which Congress seems to have adopted toward the South- 
ern States, that by the result of the war they are not States, but 
territories subject to tlie unlimited power of Congress, cannot be 
supported upon any constitutional or other theory. The idea 
of conquest, by a government, of its own territory is ridiculous. 
The idea that any department of the Government of the Union 
has any other powers than those conferred by tlie Constitution is 
equally ridiculous. That Government had no existence before 



12 

the Constitution was adopted ; it came into being solely under 
and by virtue of that instrument ; all its powers are granted 
by it. This being the case, how can it be, that under any 
circumstances, as long as the Constitution remains unchanged by 
the authority creating it, the Grovernment can exercise powers 
not delegated. This can only be done by its making aconquest of 
the Constitution itself, which, if possible, is more absurd than 
a conquest of its own territory. If that could be done, it would 
become but a Grovernment de facto, without any other restraint 
than its own will, which would be tyranny, for whether, 
unlimited power is in many men, or in one man, is immaterial. 
Tyranny is unlimited power, and its character is not changed 
by the number of persons who may exercise it. And yet the 
claim which Congress makes to legislate for the Southern 
States is without any limitation. They have subjected them 
to the military power, which they assume is, for such a purpose, 
within their unrestricted control. They not only disregard 
the Constitution as the charter of their powers, but the consti- 
tutions of the Southern States. They are not only not acting 
under any authority derived from the people of the United 
States, but in direct contravention of the known will of the 
people of the South. It is true that some of the members of 
the dominant party, in and out of Congress, justify legislation 
upon constitutional grounds, but Mr. Stevens, of Pennsylvania 
who has in the public judgment become the master of his party 
in the House of Representatives, is guiltless of such a folly. In a 
letter of his, recently published, with the frankness and boldness 
which belong to him, he rejects the absurdity and places the 
authority of Congress upon some ground outside of the Consti- 
tution, and admits that it has no warrant whatever, under any 
of its delegated powers. If he is right, then it follows that 
as far as regards the South there is no other restriction upon the 
leo-islation of Congress than its own discretion. It may 
consequently treat all the Southern States as having no 
existence whatever, as States, and govern them, through all 
time, as territories, or constitute the whole in one or as many 
States as they may think proper, and with such powers and 



13 

rights as they may choose to confer. They may, ofcourse, if they 
make States at all of them, deny them equality of representation 
in the Senate, or any representation there, and deny them also 
representation in the House of Representatives. They may 
also deny them the benefit of the judicial department of the 
Government, and citizens of the other States the right to 
sue their people in the courts of the United States. They 
may keep them altogether out of the Union formed by the 
Constitution, and make them a Confederacy of themselves 
under such a Constitution (if the term can be so profaned) as 
Congress may from time to time grant them. They may also 
refuse their people some or all of the guarantees of personal 
liberty secured by the Constitution of the United States, may 
suspend at will the writ of habeas corpus, declare martial law 
in time of peace, grant titles of nobility, authorize such States 
to pass laws impairing the obligation of contracts, make any 
currency a legal tender, regulate commerce without regard to 
the restraints on that power in the Constitution, and, in a word, 
may rule them more absolutely than the Government of Spain 
was wont to rule her colonies, and infinitely more so than 
England endeavored to rule this country before '76 — an 
endeavor which our fathers thought justified and required 
resistance by force of arms to establish themselves as an 
independent nation — a course which has long since received 
the sanction of all other nations, including England herself. 

Consequences, such as these, legitimately following the Con- 
gressional doctrine, should cause it to be sternly condemned by 
every lover of constitutional liberty. But, even if the power 
which it involves was not obnoxious to everj^ idea of such 
liberty, and could be vested anywhere with safety. Congress, 
particularly the House of Representatives, is not the body to 
possess it. Its very number diminishes the responsibility of 
individual members, wliilst it makes them subject to the 
influence of popular passions, or the whims and caprices of the 
hour. The whole current of history proves that such a body 
is not a safe depository o^' unlimited power. The authors 
cf the Federalist so thou;^ht and maintained the necessity 



14 

of giving it only certain prescribed powers and subjecting 
t.ie exercise of these to the restraints of the judicial and 
executive departments. In one of the numbers of that work 
Mr, Madison says, nearly in terms, that the tendency of such a 
body is at times to become a mere mob, and refers to historical 
instances to prov.' it. Its course during the last few years, in 
the judgment of many considerate citizens, has shewn that in 
th's resject history has repeated itself. 

III. — So far, the authority exercised or claimed by Congress 
has been considered under the war power and upon the ground 
taken by Mr. Stevens that it is outside of the Constitution. 
Let us now see whether it has any warrant under any other 
power known to that instrument. In the deliberations of the 
Convention which framed it, it was conceded by every member 
who took part in the debates, that the Government, and 
especially Congress, was to be one of strictly delegated powers. 
That this delegation was to be made by an enumeration, and 
that no power, not enumerated would belong to it, but, on the 
contrary, was prohibited. This, as a rule of construction, was 
held to be the true one by every writer during the interval of 
the submission of the Constitution to the people of the States for 
adoption or rejection, and was also so held without dissent in all 
the conventions in the States by which it was adopted, and has 
since, in every court, State or federal, been decided, to be the cor- 
rect one. With this rule for our guidance, under which of the 
delegated powers does Congress possess the authority Avhich it 
has exercised or claims? That of war has already been 
considered. The only other one is that "the United States 
shall guarantee to every State a republican form of govern- 
ment." ^Under this authority or duty it is said that Congress 
may, not only in the States which were in insurrection, but in 
all the other States, regulate the right of suffrage so as 
to make the government of the State in form republican, 
according to their views of what that form is. That form they 
hold cannot exist without universal suffrage ; and therefore 
assert the power to legalize such suffrage. Against this pre- 
tense the lact is conclusive that no such extension of I'rauchise 



15 

existed in the States by -whose people the presrn^. 'r'^vornrnont 
was formed. To suppose that this clause of guarantee wa-; 
designed to give such a power to Congress is to suppose that 
the framers of the Constitution, sent to the convention by 
their several States, intended to admit that their Governments 
were not republican. And the absurdity of this inference is, 
if possible, the more manifest from the fact that from the 
organization of the G-overnment to the last few years, no such 
doctrine was broached in or out of Congress. Its author is 
Mr. Snmner, a Senator from Massachusetts. He has now a bill 
before the Senate to carry it out. It regulates suffrage in all 
the States, without regard to property, race or color. 

He maintains therefore that even his own State Government 
is not republican, for she has never authorized any such 
unlimited right. But we are not left for the refutation of such 
a doctrine to general reasoning. The meaning of the clau ^ 
was stated by Mr. Madison in the 44th number of the Federalist; 
he says that "it supposes a pre-existing Governmentof the form 
which is to be guaranteed." No intimation was given by him 
or by any one in those days, or since, until the coming of the 
Sumner era, that the clause was designed to give to Congress 
the power to interfere with suffrage in the States, or that the 
States then about to create the Union had not Governments of 
Republican form. It was indeed to these very Governments 
that the clause was to apply. It was to secure to the people of 
such States a continuing right to their enjoyment. If it had 
been suggested by any member of the Convention that the 
Governments of Massachusetts and Virginia were not republican 
beeause there was in each but a restricted suffrage, it would 
have been pronounced a libel by Adams and Madison, and 
rejected as insulting to the patriots by whom all the then 
State governments had been established. Indeed, at that time 
the danger to republican liberty was thought to be in an excess 
of the Democratic principle, and that this danger would be the 
more or less imminent as suffrage was the more or less restricted. 
It is believed that in all the States, besides age, residence and 
sex, a property qualification was required, and that, in all, a 



16 



property n'-ali^cat'on, and to a considerable amount, was 
required of the persons to be elected to their Legislatures 
and Executives. Certainly no one then even imagined that 
this made them anti-republican. The fact is that the repub- 
lican form mentioned in the clause was used to distinguish it 
from the monarchical or aristocratic form. What Congress 
is to guarantee is not a republican Grovernment, according to 
its idea as to what such a Government is, but merely that the 
form shall be republican. This language shows that in the 
judgment of the convention and of the people in '89, the tlien 
Grovernments of the States were Governments of that form. 
There may be repuhlics more or less democratic. The purpose 
of the clause was simply to provide that the mode of construct- 
ing the State Governments should be republican, and not to 
prescribe the extent to which the democratic principle must be 
carried. Any other interpretation would empower Congress to 
constitute Governments for the States without the sanction of 
their peopled — a power never before claimed, and totally incon- 
sistent with every view heretofore entertained of the rights, in 
this respect, of the people of the States. The doctrine also 
would be as intolerable in practise as it is unwarranted 
by the Constitution. That it is so unwarranted is too clear 
for cavil. The only clause of the Constitution which relates 
to the subject of suffrage is that, in the choice of representa- 
tives, the electors shall have "the qualifications requisite for 
electors of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature." 
it is evident from this that the States were to be left to regulate 
the franchise for themselves without the interference of Congress. 
It was a matter in which they were chiefly concerned. Their 
houses of delegates were to legislate for their peculiar domestic 
interests, andjUpon every principle, the people of the Statesshould 
have the sole power of prescribing the mode and the parties to 
select them. Can anybody imagine that the men of '89 would 
have consented to part with that power ? Certainly no such 
proposition was made at that period or has been made anywhere 
until within these latter days. It follows also from this that 
the republican form of Government, to which the clause in 



n 

question relates was not considered as dependent in any degree 
upon the State regulation of suffrage. What was meant, was 
that the Government should be of a reprc,5oiitative character. 
That character was irrespective of the extent of the franchise. 
Whether allowed to all .males, without regard to age or other 
qualifications, or to all females as well as to males, was 
immaterial. The whole was left by the Constitution to the 
States, as absolutely as it was before possessed by them. 

But, would it not also be intolerable in practice ? From the 
beginning of the Groverment to the present day, each State has 
exercised the power for itself, and each has prospered. In that 
prosperity all have participated. Each has shown itself com- 
petent to use it so as to promote its own interest. How would 
it be if they should be deprived of it, and the power exercised by 
Congress? How can the people of such States as California, 
Oregon, Nevada, Nebraska, possibl}'- know in what manner 
suffrage should be regulated in New York, Pennsylvania, 
Ohio or Illinois^ to say nothing of the Southern States. And 
yet, if the doctrine prevails, the voice of their Representatives in 
the Senate, will be as potential as that of their Senators. If 
this shall be held to be the meaning of the Constitution it will 
require no argument to prove that the general Government is 
not republican. The domestic concerns of each State will then 
be managed by Representatives chosen by persons selected by 
Congress. For, whether they are elected directly by the latter or 
by voters authorized to act by that body, the result is the same. 
The direction of their own internal business, a right which is ex- 
pressly' reserved to the States by the Constitution, will be prac- 
tically with Congress. Again, the Sumner meaning of the clause 
would require of Congress to interfere with the Governments of 
the States upon any grounds upon which it might believe that 
tlieir Constitutions were not republican. For example, if they 
fail to provide for a general system of education, the support 
of the indigent and deserving, the maintenance of religion, 
the restraint of intemperance, or, if they grant charters of 
incorporations to enure specially to the benefit of the cor- 
porators, it would be under this theory^ the duty of Congress 



18 

to interfere, if in its judgment, these acts or omissions were 
inconsistent with republican Government. It has indeed, 
already, been stated in the Senate by a member of ability, 
that Congress has a right to provide for a system of educa- 
tion under the clause in question, because, in his view, a 
republican Government cannot exist where the people are uned- 
ucated. With the same force, if not greater, it may be main- 
tained that it cannot exist where the people are not virtuous, and 
upon that ground Congress will be bound to take care that the 
States shall Legislate so as to render their people virtuous. They 
must therefore provide for the support of religion, the inculcation 
of morality, and the prohibition of all business, which they may 
think tends to destroy or weaken the virtue of the people. They 
may therefore prohibit or insist that the States shall prohibit the 
manufacture or sale of intoxicating drinks. They may decide 
that monopolies are also hostile to freedom and inconsistent 
with republican Government. Upon this pretence they may insist 
upon the repeal of all State Charters of every description, and say 
to the States that they must of themselves, (because— in that, all 
their people will equally participate in the profit,) become insurers, 
bankers, railroad and canal proprietors, and engage directly 
in every business enterprise now entrusted to chartered companies. 
Can any mind, however unhinged by fanaticism or huraanitarian- 
ism, believe that such a power as this was contemplated by our 
fathers? And yet, logically considered, if Congress has the power 
under the guarantee clause to regulate suffrage in the States, in 
order to make their Goverments republican, it has the right to 
legislate to the extent stated. Indeed, if the power as to suffrage 
isin Congress, it is difficult to place any limit upon their authority 
They are to judge what State Government is in form republican. 
It is contended that the Constitution does not define the terms 
and consequently that Congress has a right to decide for itself 
what that form is, and if any one of such Governments varies from 
it they must interfere. No reasoning will more effectually lead 
to a consolidation of all the powers in Congress, which, heretofore, 
by the framers of the Constitution and their descendants without 
a dissenting voice, have been conceded to be in the States 
exclusively. So far were the authors of the Constitution, from 



19 

favoring such a consolidation, that they thought it would be 
fatal to freedom. To guard against this danger they expressly re- 
served to the States and to their people, by the 10th amendment, 
everypower not delegated to the general Grovernment. If such 
consolidation was then hazardous, because leading to despotism, 
over a country and population as limited as these were in 1789, 
how much more hazardous is it now, when our limits extend 
from ocean to ocean and the number of States has more than 
doubled, and our population instead of being three millions is 
nearly if not quite forty, and before the end of the century 
will propably be from eighty to one hundred millions. To rule 
a territory so vast and a people so numerous, by a single free 
Government, however constituted, is wholly impracticable. 
Nothing but gross folly can believe otherwise. Such an attempt 
must fail, anarchy be the first consequence, and to avoid that 
worst of all conditions, refuge would be sought in military 
power, which would be pure despotism. 

In one particular some of the great men of '89 are now proved to 
-have been in error. Their fears expressed in the national and 
State conventions were that the danger of usurpation of powers 
not delegated, involving the rights of the people, and the au- 
thority of the other departments, was in the Executive. They 
entertained no such apprehension in regard to Congress. Our 
history shews that such fears were unfounded. The Executive 
in no instance has attempted to wield any power delegated to 
Congress, or to exert any not included in the grant to itself — that 
is to say — no power not expressly conferred upon the Executive, 
or which was not in its nature executive. But there were fears 
entertained by some that such usurpations would be attempted 
by the legislative department. This it was supposed was 
incidental to the very nature of its organization — in its 
number — and its more popular character in one branch. 
The experience of the last few years has served greatly 
to confirm these apprehensions. Congress, and especially 
the House, has exercised or claimed almost every executive 
power, and attempted to deprive the Executive of nearly 



20 



every one vested in him. They have undertaken to 
govern, without regard to him, the army and navy ; 
to deny him the right to remove officers — a right exercised 
by every President, from the beginning of the Government, 
including Mr. Lincoln, and one without which the Pres- 
ident cannot perform the duty expressly commanded of 
him, to take " care that the laws be faithfully executed," 
or fulfil the obligation of his official oath, to "preserve, pro- 
tect and defend the Constitution of the United States." They 
have also established, by their own will and against his pro- 
test, absolute military despotism in ten of the States of the 
Union — destructive alike of every authority reserved to the 
States by the Constitution, as well as every individual right of 
life, liberty and property, reserved in the same waj^ to their 
people. If these usurpations receive, for any length of time, 
the approval of the people, the Constitution will be at an end, 
and individual freedom a mere idea of the past — the Kopes of 
our lathers blasted — the struggle and blood of the revolution 
fruitless — the American people slaves, and the cause of consti- 
tutional liberty postponed for ages, if not forever lost. 

IV. — There are other powers claimed by Congress, also, 
full of hazard, which have heretofore been universally held to 
belong to the States. Under the powers to regulate com- 
merce among the States, and to establish Post Offices and 
Post Roads, some of the leaders of the dominant party 
assert the right of Congress not only to construct Canals and 
Roads in the States without their consent, but to modify any 
State charter under which such improvements have been or 
may be constructed, and to discharge the companies, so chartered , 
from any restrictions in their charters which Congress may 
think interferes with the proper regulation of such commerce. 
That such a power, if it exist, is in its very nature fatal to the 
authority of the States in these matters is obvious. From the 
beginning of the Government until now such a power as this 
in the United States was never pretended. At one time, it 
was held by a political party of the day, that the general 
(Government with the consent of the States, through which the 



21 

roads or canals were to pass, might provide for their construc- 
tion. But no political dreamer ever thought that they could 
interfere with the rights of the States to charter companies for 
the purpose, or to repeal or modify such charters. If such a 
power he now recognized, the internal improvements of every 
State, upon which hundreds of millions of dollars have heen 
expended, and which are now contributing greatly to their 
internal commerce, their revenues and individual wealth, will 
be at the mercy of the general Grovernment. Under the 
commercial power they may deem it necessary to interfere by 
legislation with the regulations under which such improve- 
ments are managed, may diminish or increase the tolls, the 
States authorize, and thus in some instances destroy their rev- 
enues and the interest of the individual stockholders. They may 
indeed take away the right to exact tolls, and declare the 
use of such improvements free to all. Will New York, 
Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois, for a moment tolerate such a 
doctrine as this? If they do, they will give a blow which will 
be, if not fatal, of almost, ruinous consequences to themselves 
and their people. 

Under these assumptions of power the country has been 
brought to its present condition. The debt contracted during 
the war is enormous. The payment of the last dollar of it is 
demanded by the justice and honor of the nation. Every 
measure adopted or contemplated by Congress which injuriously 
affects its ability to do this, can not be too strenuously depre- 
cated. What can more seriously have this effect than a 
continuance of our present disorganized condition ? Whilst 
these Congressional claims weaken confidence in the per- 
petuity of our Union they greatly increase our expenses — 
diminish our means of paying the debt, and render necessary 
much heavier taxation upon the people than would otherwise be 
required. Besides these results there is another, and even 
more mischievous one. They keep alive a spirit of hostility and 
bad feeling between the people of the South and of the North, 
which must act detrimentally to the good of all. To that good, 
fraternal affection is absolutely necessary. Without it we will 



■^4 

continue to be, as during the war, enemies, instead of being, as we 
should be now that the war is ended, friends. The only way of 
correcting this sad stateof things is for the people to dismiss from 
power at the earliest moment, the servants who maintain the 
constitutional doctrines herein contested, and to select others who 
will administer the Government in the spirit, and under the con- 
stitutional restraints which guided our fathers. It must gladden 
the hearts of all considerate patriotic citizens, that the recent 
elections demonstrate that this is about to be done. In the 
Pacific, East, West and Middle States, this has been manifested. 
The people of all sections are evidently determined on having 
this result. Impelled during the war by a noble resolution to 
maintain at all hazards our national unity, and impressed with 
a conviction that the Republican party could alone be relied 
upon for that end, they gave to that party their suppart. The 
motives which governed them were so vitally connected with our 
very existence and so engrossed them that they failed to see, 
during the continuance of the conflict, how dangerous to State 
authority and individual liberty were some of the doctrines and 
measures of that party. But now, when the clamor of war is 
no longer heard, when it has ceased to resound throughout the 
land and perfect peace has been restored, they are indignant that 
the fruits of the war, for which they so anxiously looked, are 
not enjoyed. They witness a still distracted and disunited 
country; in the South, their brethren are in a condition as 
calamitous as that of the people of Poland ever was; they see them 
still treated by Congress as enemies ; subjected to the harshest 
legislation— their recent slaves, in a condition for the most part 
of total ignorance, practically made their masters — vested almost 
exclusively with all State authority by being given the elective 
franchise, and they denied it. They see them without 
representation in Congress, their industry at a total stand, 
their fields uncultivated, and the promise held out to them in 
the beginning of the insurrection, that on its termination they 
would be received as citizens and allowed the same political 
and social rights which they possessed before, grossly violated; 
the expenses of the government in consequence greatly enhanced, 



as 

and no prospect of the restoration of those States to the Union 
except as Africanized with Senators and Representatives in Con- 
gress of that race, and a claim made to phxce the negro in every 
State upon an equal footing with the white man, hy giving to him 
the elective franchise and the right to hold office, not only in 
all federal, but in all State elections ; and, finally, continuino- 
and persevering efforts to deprive the President of every power 
conferred by the Constitution upon that department, for the 
double purpose of checking the unconstitutional legislation of 
Congress, and enabling him to enforce a faithful execution of 
the laws — and threats made by some of its leaders, under the 
power of impeachment, not only to impeach him upon charges 
of which the people know nothing, but to suspend him from office 
during the trial, and appoint another in his stead — a measure 
which nothing but his patriotic forbearance can prevent from 
terminating in another civil war. Is it to be wondered at, that, 
under all these circumstances, the people are at last aroused, 
and resolved on ceasing to confide longer in so dangerous a 
party. Let it not, however, be believed that this indicates the 
mere triumph of another political party. In the words of 
a popular journalist, it is " nothing but the march of the 
intelligence of the land to our political rescue." That march is 
evidently onward, not to be checked or arrested until such rescue 
is achieved. The moral taught by the recent elections is, that 
the reasons which caused the people to resort to arms to preserve 
the Union from the attempt to destroy it by force, have impelled 
them to resort to the ballot-box to preserve from destruction the 
Constitution which created it, and under which alone it can 
permanently endure. 

When this shall be done, kindness and forbearance towards 
our brethren of the South will at once be exhibited ; instead of 
thwarting the humane policy of the President, he will be en- • 
couraged to pursue it even more generously, and then will be 
seen the never failing results of such a policy, at the termina- 
tion of civil war, as illustrated by all history. When such a 
war is ended the successful government, in the language of the 
Chief Justice in the North Carolina case, " addresses itself 



24 

mainly to the work of conciliation and restoration, and exerts 
the prerogative of mercy rather than that of justice." In such 
a case it may truly be said that the duty of forgiveness is writ- 
ten by the hand of Grod upon the human heart. Man was not 
born to hate his fellow-man. Such a feeling would make peace- 
ful society impossible. It could not for a moment exist. 
And if there be in any individual such a feeling, he 
who is cursed with it "lives without joy, and dies with- 
out hope." Let the people then see to it that the Southern 
States be restored to all their rights at the earliest moment. 
Let them rebuke the men who would prevent it, and condemn 
the radicalism of the day. 

Radicalism has never any settled, wholesome or generous 
policy. As described by the American essayist, Emmerson, 
" the spirit of our American radicalism is destructive and aim- 
less — it is not loving — it has no ultimate ends — but is destruc- 
tive only out of hatred and selfishness." It may, and doubtless 
is true, that many of those who advocate the radical measures 
of the day are governed by a conviction of duty ; but it is never- 
theless true that the spirit which guides them, without their 
being aware of it, is that stated by Emmerson — hatred towards the 
South — selfishness in themselves. That a party so animated 
is unfit to govern the country must be clear to every reflecting 
and honest man, who, discarding prejudice and party influence, 
shall decide as his judgment and love of country may dictate. 

A MARYLANDER. 



